As I wrote my post yesterday morning, as well ass Matt's and Colin's most recent posts. Our plans for yesterday was to try and make a larger dent in Den-Den Town.
Before I start this is an indoor amusement park that is located just outside our Osaka Hostel. It's name is Festival Gate that apparently was built some time ago but closed down and is awaiting for a future buyer.
Now onto Den-Den Town. Unlike the first time when we were just trying to aimlessly explore, this time we had several specific goals. Mainly crashing much much more shops. We first went the Information center for Den-Den Town where we decide to make some purchase of merchandise for the district's mascot.
With that done we found a bunch of different manga & anime shops, trading card game shops, table top game shops. More than a few sported some really great banners and statues outside their building to lure potential customers.
Outside of K-Books, a shop specializing in literature and manga. They also carried a large music selection (including imported English music).
RX-78 keeps an eye over Super Kids Land. Its a hobby store specializing in model kits. There's actually two locations, the one we visited had all the vehicles models (i.e. RC cars, planes, trains, etc.). This one appear to specialize in other model kits such as gundams and mechas.
Now this was a pretty cool shop, it's an action and PVC figure shop. Most of their merchandise appear to be second-hand so fairly cheap. As Matt's been telling me, "used" in Japan is closer to meaning "almost new". All together now, "Rider...Henshin!"
Similiar to how North Americans are interested in the East, the people of Japan are equally interested in the West. Here's a hobby shop named, Yellow Submarine. I believe it specializes in trading card games...I forget.
If nothing else, we find more game centres/arcades than anything else.
After making some last minute purchases in Osaka, we finally went to experience the last thing we wanted to do there. Dinner. At a Maid Cafe. (≧∇≦)
We entered it hesitantly, since it wasn't what you would call a normal meal. Still unlike most maid cafes. The one we went to, E-maid, was a cafe that was operating off of the streets and not up on a higher floor of buildings like most do. The maids themselves were really cute, many of which were 2 feet shorter than Matt and Colin. Thankfully one of the maids had quite some knowledge in the English tongue. So we were seated without much trouble.
Being a maid cafe, there wasn't any photography or video recording allowed. So we weren't able to get a picture of any of the maids nor the expensive normal food we ordered. Colin ordered spaghetti and a glass of grapefruit juice. Matt got the more traditional maid cafe order of Omurice/Omelette-rice. Maid even drew a Rabbit on it with ketchup. As for me, Curry Rice. It was pretty standard tasting but it was served in a big heart-shaped bowl. The curry was ladled into the bowl personally by a maid as well.
Needless to say we felt all the "love" the maids put into the food. （*´▽｀*）
We did this slyly but we were able to snap some photos of the sign for the cafe.
And with that ends our stay in Osaka. Now onto Kyoto!
We started the day early since check-out was at 10am. We did all of our major packing the previous night so it wasn't too hard to leave Osaka. We left Hotel Mikado and took the train to Osaka Station, were we finally exchange our vouchers for the Japan Railway Pass.
To get to Kyoto, we had to transfer to another railway system. So we weren't
able to use our new shiny passes yet. But much to our surprise we ran into a certain someone on the train.
Finding our new lodgings wasn't too hard. It was fairly close to the station we got off at. The new hostel's name is Khaosan Kyoto. Problem is that we arrived too early （￣□￣；）
We had to burn up 3 hours before we were able to check-in. Sooo, off to exploring.
Our hostel, is located in a busy urban area.
Since we were basically burning up time, we wandered without much aim. The first place we stopped at was at an pokemon event being held at the top floor of a department store. There were many kids with their parents. Since we're the only non-kid and non-parent there, we really stood out =P
After the department store we headed into a sheltered shopping street nearby.
Daily Culture Oddity
This is a common sight in Japan, a sheltered section of the district devoted for shopping. They aren't quite like malls nor are they like the shopping plazas you find in the West. Imagine an entire street, with shops lining both sides. Now place a roof over the street and thats what you see here.
In the shopping street, we found a bunch of anime stores and even an arcade with a Project Diva machine much to Matt's Delight.
A sign outside the Melonbooks manga shop.
I was also able to buy myself some cold medicine. Goodbye runny nose.
Once 3 hours were gone, we returned to Khaosan Kyoto. The place is a bit more expensive than Hotel Mikado but the place is definitely better quality. Unlike our first room, our new room is a 10-person dorm. As of when I'm posting this, I haven't met our other roommates yet.
To promote socializing among the clients, the entire fourth floor is devoted to a lounge and kitchen.
I'll leave off with this. Matt and Colin just returned from buying food. So I'm off to eat. Ja na!
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